Malcolm Turnbull has urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to revive the National Energy Guarantee
Malcolm Turnbull has urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to revive the National Energy Guarantee as he complained the policy was “torpedoed” by the “ideology and ignorance” of a few Coalition MPs.
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Malcolm Turnbull has urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to revive the National Energy Guarantee as he complained the policy was “torpedoed” by the “ideology and ignorance” of a few Coalition MPs.
In a candid speech at Doltone House in Pyrmont today, Mr Turnbull said one of his greatest regrets was not being able to pass the NEG, the failure of which he claimed would push both power prices and emissions up.
“There’s no point pretending the national energy guarantee wasn’t a policy of the government that had just about universal support in industry and business, had overwhelming support of the party room, and there’s no point denying the fact that it was derailed by a determined minority who are not prepared to go along with the views of the majority,” Mr Turnbull told a room filled with renewable energy investors and lobbyists at the NSW Smart Energy Council summit.
“The events around the national energy guarantee everybody saw. They played out in the public gaze. So, you know, there’s no point pretending it didn’t happen.”
He said he was unable to pass the NEG because a “significant percentage of the Coalition members who do not believe that climate change is real”.
“This is a fundamental problem that you face in a political party where there is a premise that everybody accepts the consensus, goes along with the majority, that’s the way it’s got to work. If you have a group who are prepared to threaten to blow the show up if they don’t get what they want, then it becomes very hard to work. And the Neg was a casualty of that. And that’s ... that is a fact. I’ve stated no more than the facts,” he said.
“There is a significant percentage of the Coalition members who do not believe that climate change is real, who believe we should get out of Paris for example and even some who would rather the government, instead of building Snowy 2.0, build a new coal-fired power station. You may recall Barnaby Joyce made that helpful suggestion in the final week of the Wentworth by-election.”
Mr Turnbull said prices would increase without an NEG and called on politicians to not treat energy policy as a “religious” issue.
“It has been abandoned by the federal government. I regret that, naturally, as indeed does just about everyone in the federal government,” he said.
“It did have the overwhelming support of the party room and indeed the cabinet. There was a minority of Coalition MPs who effectively torpedoed what was fundamentally a very good technology agnostic energy policy which ... would enable us to bring down prices and keep the lights on.
“Without the NEG we’re going to end up with higher emissions and higher energy prices.”